Victor Spinetti - the man The Beatles loved

He’s been performing all of his life and, despite now being in his 80s, Victor Spinetti shows no signs of slowing down.

He’s been performing all of his life and, despite now being in his 80s, Victor Spinetti shows no signs of slowing down. The veteran Welsh actor shares showbiz anecdotes with James McCarthy

VICTOR Spinetti has just turned 81, but he might as well be 18. The magnetic actor – who counted as friends The Beatles, Richard Burton and Liz Taylor, and worked with everyone from Orson Welles to Peter Sellers – has a lust for life most teenagers would struggle to match.

After a lifetime on the stage and screen, the octogenarian is displaying few signs of wear and tire.

He continues to perform on a regular basis, and yesterday spoke to the Western Mail from Lincoln, where his touring show had just arrived.

But it is The Beatles with whom Spinetti will for ever more be closely associated.

The former Monmouth School and Cardiff College of Music and Drama student jumped at the chance to be in 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night, Help! in 1965, and Magical Mystery Tour in 1967 after the Fab Four insisted he appear in the films.

“I loved that. It was amazing to be involved in that. I was a fan. George Harrison said: ‘If you’re not in the films my mum won’t come to see them because she fancies you’.”

During the filming of one Beatles’ flick he fell ill with flu. Each of the band came to visit him in hospital, they all came in one at a time.

Spinetti, who was brought up above Joe’s chip shop in Cwm, Blaenau Gwent, said: “The first person to come in was George, who said ‘I have come to plump your pillows. Whenever anyone is ill in hospital they have to have their pillows plumped’. And he did that.

“Then John came in and said, ‘Heil Hitler! The doctors have come to experiment on your life!”

Ringo came in and started telling him the story of the three bears before walking out.

Then Paul stuck his head around the door and said: “Is it catching?”

Spinetti answered: “Yes,” before the singer closed the door and left. “Paul was a pragmatist,” said Spinetti. “He knew he would have to stop filming if he became ill. It was typical of him.”

Another time The Beatles appeared on a balcony in Salzburg, Austria.

Below were “tens of thousands” of fans.

The biggest band in the world each raised their arms into Hitler salutes.

“The people screamed with laughter. Only The Beatles could have done that. It was an amazing time.

“People were Beatles’ fans first and Austrians second. Beatles’ fans first and Japanese second. Beatles’ fans first and Americans second.

“They were above countries and that is what made them dangerous to governments.

“I said to John once, ‘Oh God, be careful, be careful what you say because people believe you’. He said ‘I’m only a songwriter, I’m not a martyr’.

“The world loved them. It was the first time they had ever heard English accents that were not officer class.”

When he was performing in a New York theatre A Hard Days Night was showing in a cinema nearby.

At the end of each evening Beatles’ fans would wait outside for him.

“There were hundreds of them,” said Spinetti.

“I would be chased down the street and they would come to the theatre and scream.”

To stop them yelling during the show Spinetti would hold ten minute Q&A sessions at the end of each performance.

This led to the formation of the Victor Spinetti Fan Club of America.

Spinetti said: “We were on the plane to the Bahamas to film Help! when we landed at an airport to refuel, and we couldn’t get off.

“The immigration guy got on the plane and said, ‘Is Victor Spinetti on the plane?’

“And John Lennon said, ‘They’re deporting you, ya wop!’

“I said, ‘I am he’. The man said, ‘Will you come to the door, your fan club is at the airport’.

“The Beatles said, ‘His fan club?’

“John said after, ‘We were impressed with your fan club, do you think we could join?’ So they wrote to the fan club and joined. The Beatles were card carrying members of the Victor Spinetti fan club.”

Spinetti – deaf in one ear after being hit in the head with a brick when he was nine – also appeared in films of Taming of the Shrew in 1967, Becket in 1964 and 1972’s Under Milk Wood with Richard Burton.

“We were filming Taming of the Shrew in Rome.

“We ran over the date when we should have finished and I said, ‘I have got to be in Wales because I am best man at my sister’s wedding’.

Burton insisted he must not go off on “some scheme”.

But wife Elizabeth Taylor said: “Don’t be ridiculous Richard, it’s important for a sister to have her brothers at her wedding – I know all about weddings.”

She arranged Spinetti’s ticket home and sent a telegram offering his sister her best wishes.

In 1976 Spinetti worked on Voyage of the Damned with Orson Welles and James Mason.

During filming in Barcelona he stayed at the Ritz for three months. Spinetti said: “I had just finished filming with James Mason. They said, ‘He is a pussycat next to Orson Welles’.

“One day in my suite the phone rings and this voice said, ‘It’s Orson, come to my suite’. He was too fat to get in the lift to get upstairs.

“He said, ‘Right I have rewritten the script’. He turned to the director and, pointing at me, said, ‘This scene is all about him, not about me’.

Welles was concerned he was being focused on just because he was Orson Welles.

Spinetti said: “I’ve never had so many close up scenes in my life.”

After the meeting Orson asked the Welshman, who now lives in flat off Leicester Square, London, to stay.

Spinetti told him stories about a film fan called Ray from his hometown.

The miner’s favourite film was a 1949 Tarzan spin off called Bomba on Panther Island.

Orson – whose Citizen Kane is often cited as the greatest film ever – was distraught.

“Jesus, give me strength!” the A-lister exclaimed.

Spinetti assured him it did not matter. Whatever great movies were made Ray’s favourite would always be Bomba on Panther Island.

Then there was the time Princess Margaret made sure Oh! What a Lovely War reached the West End.

The family of Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig, brought out an injunction against the production. It portrayed him as indifferent to the fate of troops under his command during World War I.

The delay going through the courts could have led to the slot at the theatre being missed. But Princess Margaret came to see the show with Lord Cobbold, the then Lord Chamberlain, who was the official censor.

Spinetti said: “At the end of the show she said to Joan Littlewood, the director, ‘What you said should have been said a long time ago. Don’t you agree Lord Cobbold?’”

As Lord Chamberlain he dictated what could be said on the stage.

Spinetti remembered: “He said, ‘Yes ma’am’. And Joan said, ‘Thank you. That’s our permission’. He couldn’t go back on that. And we went to the West End, to Paris and New York and the show is still running somewhere.”

Spinetti has never been afraid to trample on ceremony.

When Huw Wheldon – then BBC1 controller – asked him about his accent he explained he was from Monmouthshire.

The executive told him his father was under secretary to the education minister for Wales from 1937 to 1949.

Spinetti retorted: “With the education I had he should be ashamed of himself.”

He was not on the BBC for years.

And he refused to change his name when he moved to London, despite being advised he would only ever get parts as gangsters and waiters.

Spinetti, who planned to be a teacher before he ended up on the stage, appeared with ‘quite mad’ Peter Sellers in 1975’s Return of the Pink Panther.

The Englishman asked him to join him for dinner.

When he arrived the Portsmouth-born comic had adopted the personality of a gangster’s moll.

“As I came in he said I never took him dancing,” said Spinetti. “He didn’t stop through the whole evening. I had to have dinner with this woman. He couldn’t stop. He was flirting with the waiters. They were falling about laughing – it was Peter Sellers. Eventually, I had to take him dancing at a straight disco. It was embarrassing, but I got away with it.”

Spinetti has just appeared in Murdered to Death with Clwyd Theatr Cymru in Mold.

He said: “When you get older you look at the script and see how many pages you’re off. And I’m off enough.

“I can go off into the wings and get my breath back and then go back on again.”

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